Tue, Nov 24, 2009
Spent Nearly 1000 Days In Prison For A Crime He Did Not
Commit
60-year-old Frederick Martens was
tried and convicted by an Australian court for the 2001 sexual
assault of a 14 year-old girl in Papua New Guinea. Last week, a
court of appeals in Queensland, Australia set aside that
conviction, finding there was insufficient evidence to support the
charges of child sex tourism of which he was convicted in
2006.
Martens had been the head of a flying doctor service in Papua
New Guinea. The case against him had been based on the timing
of the assault. Martens claimed he was flying at the time the
incident occurred, but was told by the Australian Federal Police
and the Director of Public Prosecutions that no official flight
records existed to prove his innocence. When he was released on
bond, he was not allowed to leave Australia to travel to Papua New
Guinea to conduct his own investigation.
But the Brisbane Times reports that, in fact, the records did
exist, and were produced when Martens' wife went to the PNG to
request them in person.
Now, Martens is suing the Australian government for an
undisclosed amount of compensation for his incarceration, and has
asked that federal laws be changed to prevent a similar incident
from occurring again. Mr Martens' attorney Chris Rose said it was
unjust that "anybody can accuse anybody of having sex with somebody
overseas and the AFP can take away your passport".
But Martens says he can never be made whole from the
incident. "(I)t has cost me the life of my daughter Stephanie, who
died at six months old from malaria because I was unable to travel
and secure her paperwork to bring her back to Australia for
treatment," he said.
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